fied to teach wisdom to princes, while the charms of his manner rendered the most solemn advice agreeable to the unlearned and the ignoble. Devoid of all affectation or reserve, he made his pictures more pleasing by throwing into them many little tints of his own character and thoughts; and he had the peculiar art of making that egotism which we condemn in others, a source of new pleasure and fascination. I left these enchanting scenes with regret, which was increased by a despair of finding others so delightful. Through a long corridor, which was directly opposite, I discovered another chamber, to which I immediately repaired. This was, in every respect, different from that which I had just quitted. The ornaments of the room, though chisselled and polished, with the most classical taste, exhibited a Gothic magnificence which inspired the mind with sensations of awe and reverence. The pictures partook of the same character. Their subjects were gloomy, and the master seemed to have aimed at showing his power in depicting scenes of melancholy and darkness. They were, however, wrought with such inimitable force and correctness, that the most prying connoisseur could not detect a fault. I admired the splendid genius of the painter, and the vast extent, boldness, and gran. deur of his pencil, which left nothing, scarcely, untouched, and which ornamented whatever it did touch: yet I could not avoid being overcome with a gloominess of mind, a sadness of soul, according with the views before me; and I felt myself disposed to sit down and weep over the miseries of humanity. My attention, however, was withdrawn from this contemplation by the remarkable appearance of their author, who was clothed in a suit of sable velvet. With a stern countenance he was taking from his gloomy pallet a shade of deep black, for the picture before him. His face wore an air of grandeur, tinctured with melancholy: but it was overcast with a magisterial severity, which made me hesitate to approach him. In strongly marked lines I saw wisdom, learning, and sage counsels written on his brow, but accompanied with a forbidding mien, which repressed my curiosity, and inspired repugnance and fear. Ah! I exclaimed, here are fit resorts for those who despond in spirit, and seek companions in melancholy-for the misanthrope who wants arguments to justify his hatred of mankind, and for those who are too happy, if any such exist; whose joy requires to be checked in its fleeting career-but virtue may certainly venture to wear a more attractive garb; and I prefer courting her when her countenance is irradiated by the smiles of cheerfulness, and decent pleasures attend her footsteps. His room was filled with a train of sycophants, both male and female. Some of them were flattering his vanity, in strains of fulsome adulation, which he sometimes repressed with indignant contempt, and again received with eager attention; while others were gratifying the curiosity of his visiters, by narrating the events of his life. As soon as he received any money for his pictures, I observed that it was instantly distributed among the blind and the needy, and that when this resource was exhausted, he gave them sketches of designs, to exchange for food. His mind appeared to be enlarged and invigorated by long habits of contemplation and inquiry. His vigorous intellect and insatiable curiosity had supplied him with an abundant store of knowledge, which he freely imparted to younger painters, who listened to him with that undiminished attention which is due to the precepts of oracular wisdom. His conversation with these persons alternately displayed the most brilliant scintillations of wit, the habitual piety of the religious, the gloomy superstition of the weak, and the awful dread of death of the wicked. His studies, I understood, were desultory and irregular, and from the rapidity with which his hand passed over the canvass, it was evident that he could ramble with ease from images the most near and familiar to the display of objects the most remote and profound. Owing T to his habits of close attention, his eye-sight was imperfect, but his hand was so accurate, that he scarcely ever retouched his pictures. Quitting a scene which agitated my mind with emotions the most various and conflicting, I passed through many other rooms which were filled with inferior artists, who were sedulously employed in the same manner as those whom I have described: but the impressions which their labours made upon my mind were too feeble and indistinct to enable me to recollect their peculiar characters. Their works, in general, were but imitations of the great men whose rooms I had visited. The fate of these performances was different. Some of them occasionally approached the originality and ease of the first artist whom I have described, the magic neatness and perspicuity of the second, and the force and correctness of the third; and their colours possessed a durability, which seemed to promise an equal immortality to their ambition. The pictures of others were brilliant and glowing at first, but they faded after a time, and at length vanished so entirely, that no trace of the outline remained upon the canvass.-Fired with the example of the great artists before me, and enraptured by the prospect of the perennial fame which they had acquired, I exclaimed with enthusiastic fervour, AND I ALSO WILL BE A PAINTER! Instantly seizing a pallet and brush, I proceeded to fill up a vacant canvass which stood before me. I completed the picture, and was attentively waiting to see the effects of time upon my colours, when the rays of the morning sun darted through my curtains, and dissipated the illusions of slumber. EPIGRAM. Phillis! you rosy little rake, |